Closing maternity unit puts patients on the road

While they were fighting to save maternity and obstetric services at the Bon Secours Community Hospital in Port Jervis, many in the community feared that women in labor would one day find themselves in an ambulance instead of a delivery room.

While they were fighting to save maternity and obstetric services at the Bon Secours Community Hospital in Port Jervis, many in the community feared that women in labor would one day find themselves in an ambulance instead of a delivery room.

They feared that gaps in staffing and delays in filling vacancies on the obstetric staff were reducing the number of births at the hospital and that those numbers would be used to justify plans to reduce services even more.

And they feared that women who do not have ready access to transportation, women who already are less likely to get prenatal services than those who do not have to worry about travel, would find the care they need that much harder to reach.

Now, all of those fears have come true.

The state Department of Health has approved the hospital's plan to decertify obstetrical services and eliminate the four maternity beds.

That mandatory ambulance ride might not cost an expectant mother anything, although there are enough provisions in the promise about insurance coverage to provide lots of paperwork and confusion once the bills start coming due. The plan even calls for the hospital to cover the transportation costs for mother and baby as well as visiting family members for a few years. Then, they will be on their own.

In a community with a documented need for better access to health care, especially care for pregnant women, it is not hard to imagine the effects of this decision. Those who already are not getting the care they need or have trouble reaching the services that are available will face even more challenges.

Women who do not receive adequate care when they are pregnant are more prone to have more medical problems, and their babies are more likely to have both health problems and developmental disabilities. All of those bring higher costs, costs measured not only in dollars. Yet the state has chosen to focus solely on the dollars that can be saved today, not the dollars that will be spent tomorrow or the other costs that people will have to pay.